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Barack Obama does not believe the Islamic State is a threat to the United States.

“What I do insist on is we maintain a proper perspective and that we do not provide a victory to these terrorist networks by overinflating their importance and suggesting in some fashion that they are an existential threat to the United States and world order,” Obama said.

The president has been under intense scrutiny for how he has handled the Islamic State. His downplaying of their threat to national security, calling them a “JV squad” has provider fodder for Obama’s critics. In his interview with Fareed Zakaria, the president offered a line of thinking that could not be any more different than that of his predecessor.

“It means we don’t approach this with strategy of sending out armies and playing Whac-a-Mole wherever a terrorist appears,” Obama said. “It drains our economic strength and puts
enormous burdens on our military. What’s required is a surgical, precise response to a very specific problem.”

Obama did not specify what that surgical, precise response was, exactly. By contrast, President George W. Bush sounded a stronger, more defiant tone when speaking of terrorist
groups.

“Our war on terror begins with al-Qaeda, but it does not end there. It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated,” Bush said to a joint session of Congress on September 20, 2011.

Longtime terrorism expert (and former CNN investigative correspondent) Steve Emerson has been tortured in the New York Times and other major media outletsafter identifying a large city in the UK (Birmingham) as “totally Muslim, where non-Muslims just simply don’t go.” He not only issued an apology to every resident of Birmingham for this misstatement on Fox News, he announced a donation to a children’s hospital in the city. Commentators and journalists make errors, but few ever apologize for them. Indeed, the Times story smearing Emerson as a “self-described” terrorism expert (the piece was co-written by Robert Mackey, who has a distinguished record of anti-Israel bias) had three errors in it that the paper had to correct.

Now the paper of record should step forward and issue a fourth correction. When you call someone “self-described,” what you are really doing is calling him or her a kook. Tell that to all the government officials (including two former FBI counterterrorism officials and a former counterterrorism chief of the NSC) who have praised Emerson for his expertise on the subject of terrorism.

In fact, if its reporters were being honest, the Times would note that the contributions Emerson has made to our knowledge about terrorism since he founded the Investigative Project on Terrorism in 1995 are enormous. Prior to IPT, he won the George Polk award—one of the highest honors in journalism—for a documentary titled “Jihad in America: The Grand Deception.” Two of his books—one on the bombing of Pan Am 103—garnered praise in reviews in the Times itself. And the late Abe Rosenthal, the legendary managing editor of the Times, once noted about Emerson: “His investigative work on radical Islamic fundamentalism is absolutely critical to this nation’s national security. There is no one else who has exhibited the same expertise, courage and determination to tackle this vital issue.” (Rosenthal, with his famous temper, must be spinning in his grave over the “self-described” smear that the paper’s current editors published about Emerson.)

However, Emerson has lambasted the Times on many, many occasions when the newspaper failed its readers on the topic of terrorism. And going after the Times too vigorously can exact a price. Thus, it’s not unreasonable to wonder if some of the paper’s writers and editors were salivating at this opportunity to waterboard him and Fox at the same time.

Let’s put aside the fact that there are definitely some parts of Birmingham that can be dangerous places for non-Muslims to go at night — something the Times may or may not choose to inform its readers about. The question I have is why CNN international correspondent Jim Clancy hasn’t received “The Emerson Treatment” from the Times and other major outlets — following a bizarre Twitter exchange last week, in which he accused Israel and Zionist propaganda of being partially responsible for the Paris attacks. He also tweeted, “The [Hebdo] cartoons NEVER mocked the prophet. They mocked how the COWARDS tried to distort his word.” In yet another tweet, he referred to someone as a “cripple,” prompting a disability inclusion organization to call on CNN to apologize for the disparaging remark.

Today, in the wake of his Twitter meltdown, Clancy announced that he’s leaving CNN after 34 years of service – no reason given, and with no apologies to anybody. So far, the only media outlets that have reported on his departure: Jewish publications; Rush Limbaugh; Mediaite and the like. Knock knock, New York Times, anybody home?

This letter is being sent to you on behalf of the Qatar Awareness Campaign Coalition. The purpose is to inform you and the public of the activities of the state of Qatar. CNN regularly solicits the opinion of policy experts and fellows from Brookings Doha, which receives millions of dollars in funding from Qatar. CNN.com also featured a prominent ad for the Qatar Foundation.

We urge to you read the information below, which includes evidence that Qatar is arguably the preeminent sponsor of terror in the world today. It is a benefactor of the genocidal armies of ISIS, al Qaeda, and Boko Haram; it is involved in Taliban narcotics trafficking through a relationship with the Pakistani National Logistics Cell; and profits from operating a virtual slave state.

Qatar is involved in terror operations from Nigeria to Gaza to India to Syria to Iraq.

So the public understands why this letter is addressed to you, the president of CNN, here are some facts pertaining to CNN’s involvement with Qatar.

Following the overthrow of the pro-Muslim Brotherhood government of Mohamed Morsi, who simultaneously backed and supported Qatar, the CNN Global Public Square blog featured an interview with Gregory Gause III, professor of political science at the University of Vermont and non-resident senior fellow at the Brookings Doha Center. Gause expressed disapproval of the ouster of the government of Morsi, a close ally of Qatar.

In August 2014, during the Israel-Gaza war, the CNN Global Public Square blog featured an op-ed by Sultan Barakat, Director of Research at Brookings Doha. Barakat was especially critical of Israel, which he accused of “disregard for basic civilian infrastructure” in Gaza, and stated that Israel “clearly prefers an underdeveloped ghetto to a viable foreign country [in Gaza].”

CNN.com featured a special advertising page for the Qatar Foundation. This ad linked to “a 30-minute monthly feature program … that seeks to capture the dynamism and broad range of cultural diversity in … the Middle East.” The Qatar Foundation, with the Emir of Qatar, established the Al-Qaradawi Research Center. Yusuf al-Qaradawi is the spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood and a vocal supporter of violent jihad.

In light of Qatar’s consistent and vocal support for the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas, we ask that you consider the attached sourced report on Qatar’s activities. The links cited are vetted and credible sources. We hope you take the time to verify the truth of the statements for yourself.

After doing so, the Coalition of the Qatar Awareness Campaign calls on you to exert due influence on the Qatari government to cease any type of involvement in all forms of Islamic terrorism, slavery, and drug trafficking!

** Select signatures as of 9/27. The Qatar Awareness Campaign Coalition is comprised of more than 25 journalists, national security experts, publishers, and independent researchers. To view all Coalition participants, please visit the Campaign’s website.

Author and terrorism expert Brigitte Gabriel is accusing CNN of “completely editing” and misrepresenting her views during a prerecorded interview that aired on Sunday’s “Reliable Sources.”

Gabriel clashed with Linda Sarsour, director of the Arab American Association of New York, during the segment in question, battling over purported “fear-mongering” and Gabriel’s views on Islamic extremism.

Waging allegations of selective editing on her Facebook page Sunday, Gabriel said that some of her explanations during the discussion were axed in an effort to fit an agenda.

“It was discouraging that Reliable Sources, a CNN show about media bias, biasly edited this pre-taped interview between me and Linda Sarsour,” she wrote. “They edited the discussion down to fit their usual pro Islamist bias.”

She continued: “They couldn’t publicly let me dominate the debate, therefore the best parts were left on the cutting room floor, including irrelevant and hostile comments by Linda Sarsour — when my logical arguments were going against her.”

Gabriel then shared some of the sentiments she claims were cut out of the discussion, noting that she had highlighted there are currently 44 conflicts between Muslims and non-Muslims raging across the globe. Sarsour, she said, was so angry that at one point she reportedly called Gabriel a “bigot,” forcing host Brian Stelter “to stop her.”

While Gabriel claimed CNN filmed for 30 minutes, the appearance ended up being 11 minutes long, though it is not uncommon for media outlets to tape and then pare down segments to fit programmatic needs.

In the final clip that aired Sunday, Gabriel is seen echoing recent comments she’s made about Islam, questioning where moderate Muslims are in addressing rampant extremism around the globe. The initial comments came in response to a Muslim student’s question at a Heritage Foundation forum about Benghazi.

“The moderate Muslims, they can organize. Where are their collective voices?,” she asked. “Where are the voices of the moderate Muslims speaking when girls kidnapped by Boko Haram disappear and we still do not know where they are?”

Sarsour responded that there are many moderate Muslims that speak out, but suggested that they aren’t always given media coverage.

“There are people out there that stood up on Boko Haram, on terrorism, on 9/11. There are national Muslim organizations who continue to day in and day out put out statements,” Sarsour said. “Is the media covering it? I don’t have control over the media to cover these stories.”

But she wasn’t done there. The activist seemingly took Gabriel’s comments personally, adding: “And I don’t have to prove to anyone that I am an American, born and praised in Brooklyn, New York, and that my parents chose to come to the United States.”

Reuters reported French authorities have arrested a Muslim émigré Jihadi in Marseilles with a Kalashnikov assault rifle and another weapon in his possession. The suspect 29 year old Mehdi Nemouche was arrested yesterday and identified as a returning Jihadi from Syria. Nemouche lived in the northern French city of Roubaix,

Reuters noted the following:

French media reported that he was suspected of having stayed in Syria with jihadist groups in 2013.

An Israeli couple and a French woman were killed on May 24 when a man entered the Jewish Museum in busy central Brussels and opened fire with a Kalashnikov rifle. A Belgian man remains in critical condition in hospital.

French President Francois Hollande confirmed a suspect had been arrested and said France was determined to do all it could to stop radicalized youths from carrying out attacks.

“We will monitor those jihadists and make sure that when they come back from a fight that is not theirs, and that is definitely not ours … to make sure that when they come back they cannot do any harm,” Hollande told reporters.

The message “to these jihadists is that we will fight them, we will fight them and we will fight them”, he said.

Hollande has said previously the attack was motivated by anti-Semitism.

A spokeswoman for the Belgian federal prosecutor’s office confirmed a suspect had been arrested in Marseille but declined to give further details. Prosecutors scheduled a news conference in Brussels for 3 p.m. (1300 GMT).

“This is a relief,” Joel Rubinfeld, head of the Belgian League against Anti-Semitism, told BFM TV.

“But this is also worrying us … it is crucial that countries who have citizens who have gone to Syria take all necessary measures to make sure this does not happen again.”

Police released a 30-second video clip from the museum’s security cameras showing a man wearing a dark cap, sunglasses and a blue jacket enter the building, take a rifle out of a bag and shoot into a room before calmly walking out.

Belgian officials have said the shooting was probably a terrorist attack. Some security experts suggested it may have been the work of a hitman rather than an anti-Semitic “lone wolf”.

One of the Israeli victims, Emmanuel Riva, had previously worked for Nativ, a government agency that played a covert role in Jewish migration from the former Soviet Union, an Israeli official said.

Miriam Riva, his wife, had also worked in the past for the prime minister’s office, the official said.

Dr. Jill Bellamy van Aalst had posted recently on concerns in Holland regarding returning Syrian Jihadis and bio warfare threats to public health in the EU. Just yesterday , we learned the identify of an American Jihadi suicide truck bomber killed in Syria, was a resident in Florida, Moner Mohammad Abu-Salha.who went by the name of Abu Hurayra Al-Amriki, “the American”. Abu Huraya was a companion of the prophet Mohammed. The American was killed in a massive Al Nusra suicide truck bombing operation in Idlib, Syria. Al Nusra is the ‘official’ Al Qaeda resistance group active in the Syria Civil war opposition.

FBI Director Comey said in a CNN report, “There’s going to be a diaspora out of Syria”. “And we are determined not to let lines be drawn from Syria today to a future 9/11.” With the arrest of the French suspect in the Belgian Jewish Museum attack and disclosure of the American AQ martyr, the Syrian civil war has generated international concerns about the threat of returning jihadi veterans posing domestic threats as trained home grown terrorists. As witnessed by the events in both Syria and Belgium, those threats pose a clear and present danger in both the EU and here in the US. In retrospect, President Obama’s declaration during the 2012 campaign that “bin Laden is dead and Al Qaeda is on the run” appears premature, at best, if not dangerously myopic.

When we posted on the disappearance of Malaysian Flight 370, we speculated that the Boeing 777 -200ER Aircraft with 239 souls on board, including 12 crew, might have been a criminal act perpetrated by a trained terrorist or a suicidal pilot, as was the case with the tragic 1999 Egyptian Air Flight 990. At that time we noted that the aircraft had been picked up by Malaysian military radar on a flight path 200 miles northwest of Penang in the Malacca Straits. Experienced aircraft accident investigators dismissed that alleged debris in the South China Sea, detected from satellite imagery by the Chinese civil aviation authorities, were too large to result from impact. The relatively shallow sea depth is less than 150 feet.

The latest Malaysian civil aviation authority press conference has confirmed that the 180 degree u turn was the result of a deliberate action by technically competent perpetrators or perhaps akin to Egyptian Flight 990, either the Malaysian Air Flight Captain or his co-Pilot. The radar and automated air control system pings detected via Inmarsat, PLC appeared to corroborate a new flight path that could follow waypoints used for international flights from Kuala Lumpur to the Middle East. After all Malaysia is a predominately Muslim country with significant minority overseas Chinese and Indians. Thus, the Middle East flight may have been the traditional air route for Muslim pilgrims on the obligatory Haj to Mecca. The new analysis by both US and Malaysian experts suggesting possible flight paths across the Andaman Sea and Indian Ocean or due south of the Malacca Straits across the Aceh peninsula of Indonesia skirting the Australian coast west of Perth may confine the search areas looking for debris. Unlike the shallow South China Sea, the Indian Ocean depths with trenches at more than 33,000 feet in places would make spotting debris difficult and would likely mask any pings from aircraft flight recorders.

Watch this CNN report on questions regarding the flight crew of Malaysian Air Flight 370:

There may be the increasing likelihood that Flight 370, despite its violent maneuvers after seizure of the controls, ranging as high as 45,000 feet in altitude to a low of 23,000 feet, flew on for upwards of six plus hours. That would have placed the flight within possible landing fields that could accommodate the Boeing wide body jet. The Boeing 777 200ER at takeoff carries more than 31,000 pounds of aviation fuel which itconsumes at an hourly rate of 2,100 pounds. That gives Flight 370 a possible range of over 5,200 miles. The aircraft requires a takeoff distance of 10,000 feet with a full load of both fuel and passengers.

Former USAF General Thomas McInerny suggested on a Fox News report that the perpetrators may have been heading to landing fields and areas in Pakistan or Iran, given the operating characteristics of the Boeing 777. He told Fox News, “I could envision that terrorists could use it, fill it up with explosives, and attack a U.S. aircraft carrier.”“Put on board a nuclear weapon – a prototype on it – hit Israel, the United States.”

Read more at New English Review including some history on terrorism activities in the region and Malaysia.

Just over a week ago, Senator Diane Feinstein and Representative Mike Rogers, chairs of the Senate and House Intelligence committees respectively, warned America that we are not safer today from the threat of Jihadist terrorism than we were several years ago. We told you about their discussion on this matter on CNN’s Sunday morning news show, State of the Union, in an email bulletin last week, but it is worth reviewing their appearance again.

It turns out that Feinstein and Rogers aren’t the only Democrat and Republican who agree that the threat from Jihadist terrorism is worse today than it was years ago—and that the threat is actually getting worse.

On Sunday, The Washington Times reported that members from both sides of the aisle are skeptical of the Obama administration’s portrayal of President Obama as a great “terrorist fighter.”

Some members of Congress are resentful of the administration promoting what they see as a “false narrative” of Obama as the hero that killed Osama Bin Laden, while Al Qaeda grows and spreads. Other members of Congress are concerned that Al Qaeda and other Jihadist terror groups are active in more safe havens today than ever before with more Jihadi warriors fighting in more places than ever before.

Given that Al Qaeda was able to launch the September 11th, 2001, terrorist attacks from a single safe haven in Afghanistan, the proliferation of Jihadist terrorism in more places than ever is rightly seen as a threat to US national security.

For instance, Rep. Michael T. McCaul of Texas, who chairs the House Homeland Security Committee, told CNN on Sunday that Al Qaeda and Jihadist ideology was “spreading like a spider web, like a wildfire through Northern Africa and the Middle East.” He also reported that the threat to America has become greater in recent years, despite assurances from President Obama, particularly during politically-tainted presidential campaign speeches.

We cannot emphasize enough how dangerous it is for the President of the United States to be spreading a false narrative about the status of our enemies in the war on terrorism.

First, by claiming repeatedly that Al Qaeda is “on the path to defeat” and “on the run,” when the available evidence suggests that Al Qaeda is growing stronger, Obama is encouraging Americans to let down their guard. Not just ordinary American citizens, but our first responders as well. Leadership is more important to a war effort than any other form of endeavor and our nation’s leaders’ words matter.

We aren’t talking about a few isolated incidents of exaggerations or misstatements either. As CNSNews reported in November of 2012, just two months after the terrorist attack in Bengahzi, Libya, which resulted in the deaths of 4 Americans, Obama was almost constantly stating that Al Qaeda was being “decimated”.

This brings us to the second negative impact of the Obama administration’s false narrative. By repeatedly claiming that Al Qaeda is defeated, the president is almost daring the Jihadists to prove him wrong. Early on in Operation Iraqi Freedom, President Bush was criticized for uttering the words “bring it on,” when asked about the Jihadist insurgents in Iraq. But that quip was nothing compared to Obama’s repeated claims that Al Qaeda is through. It has rightly been compared to “spiking the football,” and is no doubt viewed as a taunt by Al Qaeda.

By saying that Al Qaeda is on the path to defeat when they are clearly growing stronger in more safe havens than ever before, Obama is waving a red cape in front of a bull. It might be okay if Al Qaeda was in fact close to defeat, but taunting a strong Al Qaeda could result in Americans paying the ultimate price for Obama’s boasts.

At ACT! For America, our role as the largest, fastest growing grassroots national security organization is to ensure that our leaders act and speak responsibly and that our fellow citizens are educated about the threats that America faces. All of us need to make certain that our elected officials know that we will not tolerate cavalier, irresponsible rhetoric when it comes to the war effort. We must thank our fighting men and women for the victories that they fight for, but we must never let down our guard for the sake of political expediency.

In statements that can only be described as stunning, Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Congressman Mike Rogers (R-MI), both of whom chair the Intelligence Committee in their respective chamber, admitted that America is “Less Safe” than it was two years ago. The comments were made in a joint interview with the two leaders that aired on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday morning.

While Feinstein’s and Rogers’ comments were focused exclusively on kinetic attacks (bombings, shootings, etc.), not the massive jihadi network in the United States, they make it clear that the number of threats is significantly higher and the number of actual jihadi attacks worldwide is much greater than only 24 months ago.

These facts raise some serious questions and bring to light fundamental failures by our government.

Why is the number of jihadi attacks around the world increasing at a time when the United States is ending the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq?

Senator Feinstein made a powerful statement when she said there is “a real displaced aggression in this very fundamentalist jihadist Islamic community, and that is that the West is responsible for everything that goes wrong and that the only thing that’s going to solve this is Islamic Sharia law.”

During the interview, Congressman Rogers said, “I absolutely agree that we’re not [safer] today, for the very same reasons. The pressure on our intelligence service to get it right to prevent an attack is enormous.”

The leaders of both of our intelligence committees in the United States Congress are on the record admitting that we are less safe and jihadi attacks are increasing rapidly. Our enemy seeks to impose Islamic Sharia Law and that’s their stated objective. Our intelligence service is under “enormous” pressure to prevent attacks.

As has been documented previously here, and in my new book Raising a Jihadi Generation, we have a massive jihadi network in the United States led by the Muslim Brotherhood. All training on the Muslim Brotherhood and Sharia Law for the men and women who need it the most in the FBI, DHS, Joint Terrorism Task Forces, and others, has all been completely shut down by the leadership of the FBI, DHS, and military.

The pieces now fall into place: Our Intel Committee chairs have stated: the objective of the jihadis (the imposition of Sharia); that the threat is increasing greatly; and that our intelligence service in under enormous pressure to prevent attacks. Yet, all training dealing with understanding these issues has been shut down and therefore the key issues cannot be discussed within the very agencies charged with protecting us.

Mrs. Feinstein and Mr. Rogers may want to ask the agencies charged with protecting America how they expect their employees to defend against an obvious threat that they have commanded their employees not to know.

Over dinner at the newest hot restaurant in Istanbul, my friend exhales his fury. “This is democracy?” he snaps. “What kind of democracy?”

It has been barely a month since Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan reversed a precedent established 90 years ago by the founder of the republic, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, and lifted a ban on headscarves in government buildings, including the parliament. On Oct. 31, the day the new law went into effect; four female parliamentarians arrived wearing the hijab. This was not so much for religious reasons – they’d never worn them there before­ – but in a gesture, as it were, of conquest: the Islamists had won.

Not that they expressed it this way: rather, they and the ruling Islamist AKP (Freedom and Justice) Party heralded the event as a welcome, democratizing act. What is astonishing is that many in the West did, too. In America, the New York Timeschirped, “The lifting of the head scarf ban was part of a package of democratic changes Mr. Erdogan unveiled in September.”

It is this news that I have just informed my friend, which elicited his retort. Only an hour earlier, his wife and I had walked past a university student’s home recently raided by police. The reason: boys and girls were suspected of living there, two sexes under one roof – and this behavior, Erdogan had declared only weeks after his “democratizing” reversal of the headscarf ban, would not be tolerated.

He wasn’t kidding. According to a report in the Turkish Radikal newspaper, six police officers also raided an apartment in Manisa, where three female students lived. Male guests had been seen there, the authorities said, and the women were subsequently fined 100 lira (about $45) each.

But that’s not all, my friend tells me. Just days after passing the law to permit hijabs in parliament, AKP Vice President Hüseyin Çelik publicly condemned a popular TV presenter, Gözde Kansu, for appearing on air in a revealing dress, her cleavage clearly visible through a keyhole neckline. Kansu was fired the next morning, an indication of just how intimidated the media is by their government these days. This is the country the Committee to Protect Journalists has named “the world’s worst jailer of the press,” a nation where, while police bombarded peaceful anti-AKP protesters with water cannons and tear gas last summer, CNN’s local bureau ran a documentary on penguins.

“This,” says my friend, “is why it’s not democracy. It would be, if women could wear hijabs or a miniskirt. But they can’t.”

Yesterday was a red letter day – or perhaps it should be called an Islamic green letter one – for U.S. intelligence. For the first time I can recall, the top legislator on a congressional oversight committee has actually made clear what motivates our enemies in what used to be called euphemistically the “War on Terror,” and that Team Obama now dubs even more opaquely as the effort to “counter violent extremism.”

This breakthrough came in the course of a joint appearance on CNN’s “State of the Union” by the chairpersons of the Senate and House Intelligence Committees, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI), respectively. The media seized on the ostensibly big news out of their remarks: bipartisan agreement that the United States is at greater risk of terrorist attack today than two years ago.

But important, ominous and accurate as that assessment is, it wasn’t the most important point made by these two respected lawmakers. Instead, it was Sen. Feinstein’s observation in response to a question about what causes the “hatred” that makes our situation more perilous:

“There is a real displaced aggression in this very fundamentalist jihadist Islamic community, and that is that the West is responsible for everything that goes wrong and that the only thing that’s going to solve this is Islamic shariah law.”

What makes this incontrovertible statement so noteworthy? It is the fact that the intelligence community is not allowed to say what Sen. Feinstein did. Under Obama administration guidelines, for intelligence officers – and for that matter, law enforcement, Homeland Security and military personnel – to talk about Islamic jihadism and shariah as the motivation for terrorism can be a career-ending offense.

For example, on May 10, 2012, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Martin Dempsey, used a press conference to denounce a highly decorated and up-and-coming Army officer, Lieutenant Colonel Matthew Dooley, for teaching an elective course at the Joint Forces Staff College using an approved curriculum. According to Gen. Dempsey, what prompted this extraordinary action was that a student – who it turns out had not actually been enrolled in Col. Dooley’s class – “was concerned that the course was objectionable and that it was counter to our values…our appreciation for religious freedom and cultural awareness. And the young man who brought it to my attention was absolutely right. It’s totally objectionable.”

At the core of what was so “totally objectionable” is the fact that students were exposed to information that made plain the gravity of the threat of which Sen. Feinstein warned: the supremacist, totalitarian Islamic doctrine of shariah and the jihad or holy war it obliges adherents to perform. Col. Dooley’s promising career was cut short and the files of his institution and that of the rest of the national security community have been purged of all such information deemed by unidentified subject matters experts engaged for the purpose to be “counter to our values.”

Sen. Feinstein’s forthright declaration is particularly gratifying as I had an opportunity to discuss the danger posed by shariah with her in the course of testimony I provided the Senate Judiciary Committee on July 24, 2013 at the invitation of her colleague, Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX). In the course of making the case for keeping the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay open, I observed:

“We have been obliged to go to war because it was thrust upon us. And, if we are to prevail in this conflict, we must understand the nature of the enemies with whom we are at war. They are shariah-adherent jihadists who believe, in accordance with that doctrine, that it is God’s will that they destroy our way of life and subjugate us to theirs.”

At the time, Sen. Feinstein strongly disagreed with my view that shariah’s dictates make it impossible safely to release its adherents from Gitmo or, alternatively, to incarcerate them instead in this country – where they might exploit rights foolishly conferred upon them to secure their freedom and wage jihad here. I hope that the clarity she expressed Sunday about the inexorable nature of the shariah doctrine and the supremacist hatred it impels will cause the senior senator from California both to insist that such insights are once again inculcated in those responsible for our security and to reconsider her support for closing Guantanamo Bay.

After just two months on the air, Al Jazeera America is losing ground in the US.

The US offshoot of the Mideast news outfit managed fewer than half of the viewers who tuned in to its predecessor, Al Gore’s Current TV.

Al Jazeera America has averaged just 13,000 viewers a day since its Aug. 20 launch — on par with a public access channel. In the 25- to 54-year-old audience sought by advertisers, it drew 5,000 viewers.

The ratings are so low, they are considered a “scratch” and aren’t reported by Nielsen.

“We are making large investments in programming and marketing,” an Al Jazeera America spokesperson said Sunday.

By comparison, 31,000 viewers tuned into Current TV a year ago.

Currently, Al Jazeera America is carried in about 44 million US households. The network lost millions of households when Time Warner Cable dropped it shortly after its debut.

The No. 2 cable provider has agreed to make Al Jazeera America available in about 10 million homes. Despite that, the news channel is the smallest of fry. Last Thursday, Even with Time Warner Cable on board, Al Jazeera America has a long way to go in its mission to compete with mainstream rivals. Leader Fox News drew 353,000 total viewers, while CNN notched 174,000 and MSNBC grabbed 121,000.

Al Jazeera America is trying to attract a US audience despite a deep distrust in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks and criticism that it harbors an anti-US bias.

The network’s financial backer, the government of Qatar, paid a hefty $500 million in January to purchase Current TV and gain US distribution.

Both the New York Times and CNNhave new reports discussing Norwegian Somali émigrés, including the planner involved in the Al Shabaab attack on the Nairobi Westgate mall, September 21, 2013. See our NER report in the current October 2013 edition, “Al Shabaab is a Threat to the World at Large.” These latest reports resulted from Norwegian Intelligence (PST) investigations in both Norway and Kenya. As noted in our October 10 Iconoclast post of a Long War Journalreport , one of the Norwegian suspects was the subject of a failed US Navy Seals Raid at Baraawe in Somalia. We noted:

The Norwegian intelligence agency PST today announced the launch of an investigation into reports that a Norwegian was involved in the Shabaab massacre at the Westgate Mall in Kenya. The suspect is a Norwegian of Somali origin, and may be an acquaintance of the al Qaeda affiliate’s external operations chief, Abdulkadir Mohamed Abdulkadir, also known as Ikrima.

According to the BBC, the PST has dispatched investigators to Kenya to determine the extent of the Norwegian suspect’s involvement and to help prevent new terror threats. The inquiry also aims to see if the suspect is linked to Shabaab. PST section leader Jan Glent also said he could not rule out “more Norway-linked suspects,” Reuters reported.

These latest reports also reflect the forensic remains that were found of only four Al Shabaab fighters secured from the rubble of the Westgate Mall in the rampage that killed 67 and wounded hundreds. More than 1,000 escaped the upscale Nairobi mall that sustained significant and extensive damage from the counter attack by Kenyan security forces.

Watch this latest Reuters footage of the Westgate Mall CCTV video from the attack that was released on Thursday, October 17, 2013.

Counterterrorism officials who follow Al Shabaab movements in the West warn about the al Qaeda affiliate group’s ability to range beyond war torn Somalia to hit targets in major émigré centers. The US and Scandinavia being illustrative of what we have discussed in several Iconoclast posts and a major NER article, Foot Soldiers of Islam. One expert quoted in the CNN report on these latest developments in Norway commented:

“What you have to look out for, also in the United States and the United Kingdom and all these other Scandinavian countries, are these small networks that are in one sense detached also from the Somali community leaders — radicalized groups of youths and radical preachers, sheikhs, that go traveling around the various countries to try to incite,” he said. “That’s what we have to watch these days.”

Kenyan intelligence sources say that Ikrima, who speaks six languages and grew up in Kenya, is the main “point person” between al Qaeda in Somalia and al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, and that he has helped pinpoint Kenyan targets.

Morten Storm, a former informant who has worked for several Western intelligence agencies, has told CNN that he developed a close relationship with an Al-Shabaab figure called Ikrima between 2008 and 2012. He said he is confident that it’s the same person who was targeted by U.S. forces.

There has been a spate of following articles on whether a Nairobi Mall type of attack could happen here. A CNN report endeavoring to answer this “what if” question chronicled a series of actions at American Malls, some of which have been thwarted, but others have not. It noted these:

In the past few years, federal prosecutors say they have thwarted two planned attacks on malls, each of which would have been carried out by single attacker:

–Nuradin M. Abdi, a Somali citizen living in Columbus, Ohio, was sentenced in 2007 to 10 years in prison after admitting he sought terrorist training in Ethiopia to carry out attacks, including a never-attempted attack on a mall in 2002.
–Derrick Shareef of Rockford, Illinois, was sentenced in 2008 to 35 years in prison after pleading guilty to plotting to set off grenades at a Rockford shopping mall. Shareef was a convert to Islam who was recorded saying he wanted to kill “infidels.”

But attacks which have succeeded in causing casualties at American malls in recent years have been carried out by young lone gunmen with no apparent cause to promote:

“Soft targets always attract the terrorists because they’re usually not defended,” said Lt. Col. Rick Francona, CNN’s military analyst. “It’s a very effective way of causing a lot of panic, a lot of damage very quickly and achieving the objective of terrorizing people.”

On the evening of Feb. 12, 2007, a young Muslim man walked into the Trolley Square mall in Salt Lake City with a pistol-grip, 12-gauge shotgun and a 38-caliber revolver and opened fire on shoppers, killing five and wounding four others, including a pregnant woman.

Police say he “sought to kill as many people as possible.” He had a backpack full of ammunition, enough firepower to massacre dozens of innocent people. But fortunately, an off-duty cop returned fire and eventually, with the help of other police, put an end to the terrorist’s life and grand plans.

Watch this local Salt Lake City KUTV Channel -2 news report on the Trolley Square Mall Mass shooting on February 12, 2007:

Sperry has delved into a 745 page FBI report on the Trolley Square Mall Jihad and finds evidence of denial of both indications of the fundamentalist views of this Bosnian Muslim perpetrator one of more than 200,000 brought as refuges to the US during the Clinton Administration I n the 1990’s. We wrote recently of the case of another Bosnian Refugee Muslim , Zeliko Causvic, who was arrested at the Jacksonville Airport attempting to perpetrate a bombing hoax, “ Investigation looming over hoax bomb at Jacksonville International Airport”

Perry discloses evidence of the Jihadist mindset of Talovic in planning and carrying out the Salt Lake City mall massacre buried in the FBI incident report.

The Westgate attack in Kenya with its accompanying butchery of every man, woman and child in a shopping mall who couldn’t name Mohammed’s mother is being met with baffled mutterings about “senseless violence.”

Al-Shabaab’s real audience wasn’t the Americans watching CNN and trying to make sense of the violence. It was the millionaires and billionaires in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Qatar who can turn any terrorist group from wannabes into RPG toting superstars racing through the desert on last year’s model Toyota pickup trucks with crates full of night vision equipment.

You may think of the news as a collection of tragedies. To the dozens of Al-Qaeda franchises and assorted Islamist terrorist groups; it’s American Idol. The CNN coverage of their attack is their audition on a worldwide reality show that shows off their skills and makes them famous.

Not every terrorist group is lucky enough to have its own Bin Laden; its Saudi sugar daddy with the cash and the cachet to get them the money they need in exchange for being the one to appear on camera and proclaim “Death to America”. And the Jihadists in Afghanistan fighting over Osama at times nearly killed each other over access to their effete money man.

Terrorists kill people “senselessly” because a spectacular terrorist attack gets them noticed. It sets them apart from every other Islamist terrorist group that throws together a name and waves a flag with a bunch of swords on it while vowing to drive out all the infidels. The 12 PM CNN audience may not applaud, but the Al Jazeera audience does. And it’s the one that matters.

Muslim terrorist organizations fight to impose Islamic law. But what does that really mean, aside from the little girls wearing Burkas and the demolished churches?

Think of the letters of marque that allowed privateers to prey on enemy shipping during wartime. The difference between a privateer and a pirate was the letters of marque. The difference between a warlord, a bandit, a rapist and a Muslim terrorist is the Koran and the Fatwa based on it that acts as his letter of marque.

Muslim terrorism is in no small part legalized banditry with each terrorist group leader hoping to set up shop as the Emir of his own little territory while fighting for the Caliphate.

Get some thugs together, form a terrorist group waving a black flag and stake a claim on some territory. Kill enough people and you’ll get weapons and training from terrorist networks and money from Gulf billionaires eager to impress their friends by sponsoring their very own terrorist attack. “Abdul, You know the Westgate attack? That was my money.”

A group of Egyptians protested in front of the White House Thursday afternoon to “expose” what they say is “the clear bias of the Obama administration and the American media in support of the Muslim Brotherhood and its terrorist ideology.”

Hundreds of Egyptians, who travelled to Washington, D.C. from around the United States, gathered in front of the White House before marching to the offices of the Washington Post, news network CNN, and the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), a Muslim advocacy group that protestors called the Brotherhood’s “embassy.”

Protest organizers called on “all Egyptians” living in the U.S. to join their march, which took place as violence in Egypt continues to rage between the Muslim Brotherhood and secular military forces.

The marchers’ final stop was the Egyptian military attaché’s D.C. office, where the activists chanted their support for “the Egyptian army for its heroic stand against [Muslim Brotherhood] terrorism.”

“We are against the Muslim Brotherhood,” protestor Ramez Mossed told theFree Beacon. “He [Obama] supports the Muslim Brotherhood. He has a big hand in Egypt and the mess in Egypt. We’re trying to tell him, ‘Don’t support the terrorists. Please be fair.’”

Many of those who participated in the march are Coptic Christians, a religious group that has been systematically targeted with violence by pro-Brotherhood protestors, some of whom have been desecrating and sieging churches in Egypt.

The protestors gathered on the curb outside of the White House lofting signs that read, “We support the Egyptian Army,” and “The Muslim Brotherhood never renounced terrorism.”

“You can burn down our churches but you can never touch our faith,” read another sign.

“I love this sign,” said one passerby who saw the sign referring to the churches. “I believe it too.”